Posted
by
Soulskill
on Tuesday December 28, 2010 @06:26AM
from the get-some-exercise-while-you-raid dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies have developed software that enables control of PC video games using the Microsoft Kinect sensor. Their toolkit, known as the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), emulates custom-configured keyboard controls triggered by body posture and specific gestures. This video shows a user playing the online game World of Warcraft using the Kinect. Potential applications of this technology include video games for motor rehabilitation after stroke and reducing childhood obesity through healthy gaming."

Anyway, has anyone actually done streaming skeletal recognition over the web yet? Seems that's the kinda thing that would be an interesting addition to Second Life or some of the other "open" virtual worlds.

I could see him trying to use those gestures to try to defend himself.
I just do not think it is reasonable to think anyone can play nearly as good with any of these current motion capture devices compared to having a keyboard.. DPS will drop, it will fail to pick up a gesture here and there, etc. I am sure this is quite fun and has it uses though.

It wouldn't look like anything at all because due to blizzards fascist grade tos they would have everyone banned for botting/macros.
They would then release a Blizzard-certified movement-controlled-wow-interface for $300.

I played WoW for several years with G5 keyboard (which is very macro-friendly) and never had any problems with Blizzard..... AFAIK no one was ever banned for using a specific input device unless he/she actually used it for botting.

Botting in WoW? That's more pointless than anything I've heard before. I spent my last half a year in that game ruining the server's economy in a True Capitalistic manner.

you were playing a Wall Street Executive? Wow has that class?

I was doing that too. Botting and creating an artificial deficit of selected goods by buying everything out of the AH under certain price.
Of course I had no use of all this money and when I quit, I gave everything to my guild mates.

The policy of using custom input devices to play WoW is as follows:Every input into the game must be associated with a user interaction. The device delivering the input must deliver the input as quickly as possible when the user inputs the command, in that delaying input into the game is not allowed. Finally, the device must not analyze the state of the game other than if the game is receiving the input when making decisions on what input command corresponds with the user input (or if the command from the u

You can't make one mouse or keyboard click result in multiple clicks, so many programmable keyboards count as botting. That is because this defeats the very carefully orchestrated limitations in the Blizzard macro system. Specifically, it is set up so that a macro cannot continue past an error, such as trying to use an ability that is on cooldown (and that triggers the global cooldown (GCD) if available). You also cannot investigate from a macro if an ability is available, so the effect is that a single but

Why is it that you don't wish to protect the children? I bet you're a child molester! If you truly cared about them, then you'd know that children can't differentiate between fiction and reality (such as video games, movies, or pornography) and that they are just a picture/video/game away from becoming murderers and/or rapists! Seeing a nude person could cause them to be scarred for life. That's precisely why everything must be censored or be made extremely difficult to obtain.

why not simply go outside and play a REAL LIFE fucking game instead of some shite computer game if your concerns include childhood obesity....

in addition to burning more calories, using more muscle groups, and breathing fresh air, you will also learn to speak to and relate to other human beings, first hand, and learn essential social skills like co-operation and mutual goal seeking...

As a side note... I found when I was heavily into MMOs, I actually lost weight. Crazy, I know... but I wasn't sitting on the couch with a bag of chips in one hand because that would get my keyboard and mouse all nasty. I actually ate better (less junk food) when I was playing because carrots weren't as greasy, I had bought more food from the grocery store so I had more time to play (didn't have to get in the car and run to Wendy's) and could grab a sandwich when I was hungry.

Why? What's pathetic about making rational choices? nschubach wants to play a game with his/her own time and chooses to optimise food runs in both a time and health-positive way and you complain? If I could do voices, I'd be saying, "Win freakin' win, baby!" in a solid Peter Griffin.

I personally like sandwiches so a lot of my snacking (whether gaming or not) is from that food group. But it's nice to have something pretty tasty and filling that won't get everywhere when playing.

I agree. I got back into WoW with Cataclysm. I quit for a few months every now-and-then because of classes. When I can't find time for homework plus wow after my job, I don't login for a month or so.
Anyways, yeah, I eat a lot better food whenever I'm gaming constantly Apples for a snack instead of some chips and dip. I also find I'm not hungry as often. I'll look at the clock and notice three hours have gone by, and I "should probably" eat dinner, right after I finish this quest hub. Then it's midnight an

I do go out... all the time. I go out and go to work (I even take the stairs up to the third floor office,) I go out and go to the bar some weekends, I regularly go out with REAL people to eat at times too. GASP!. I don't sit at my PC constantly and I don't know where you got that idea.

ah ah was trying to reply to parent must of clicked something wrong. sorry for the confusion was just trying to point out how ridiculous it is to complain about people not going out and playing a game whilsts they are themselves not going out and posting on a message board on slashdot

why not simply go outside and play a REAL LIFE fucking game instead of some shite computer game if your concerns include childhood obesity....

in addition to burning more calories, using more muscle groups, and breathing fresh air, you will also learn to speak to and relate to other human beings, first hand, and learn essential social skills like co-operation and mutual goal seeking...

You'd be surprised how many calories a good session with the kinect can burn. My wife's cousins are 16 and 14 and are both cheerleaders (highschool and competitive squads) and even they were sore the next day from playing. Of course the wow controller seemed to only focus on hand gestures so it's a lot less cardio than the xbox titles that exercise the entire body.

Maybe I'm being lazy, but call me when finger flicks and other small gestures can be used and detected properly. Keyboards and mice work so well because you don't need to exert tons of effort into doing a simple task. Our hands are one of our best features for mimicking any sort of device till you can wire it into your brain. Doing a 25ms reaction with your fingers is a lot easier then with your back. Kinect just seems more like a gimmick and a Wiii too (me too) thing, then something extremely usable.I coul

I could only watch the first ten seconds because it just looked so uncomfortable. There was nothing natural or intuitive about the movements and WoW? Seriously, they used WoW as they're example? They need a much simpler game (and a reason to be standing) to make this shine.

Agreed. Not to mention, just one mob in Dustwallow? Lame. Let's see him run that sucker in Twilight Highlands doin' the dailies out there. Or on FTA/FTH run...or in AV.....
I agree, finger flicks and/or face gestures (sticking my tongue out to pop hero/bloodlust...oh yea...).
Call me when I can fake a yawn to thunderfk people off a bridge.

Agreed. Not to mention, just one mob in Dustwallow? Lame. Let's see him run that sucker in Twilight Highlands doin' the dailies out there. Or on FTA/FTH run...or in AV..... I agree, finger flicks and/or face gestures (sticking my tongue out to pop hero/bloodlust...oh yea...). Call me when I can fake a yawn to thunderfk people off a bridge.

Ah, that's right. I knew there was a reason I didn't go back into WoW for Cata.

Between the number of people I've heard complaining about the Kinect requiring too much movement, and the number of people jumping on the "motion gaming" bandwagon, it almost seems like Nintendo got it right. The sweet spot between making games more physical and not making them too physical. Even senior citizens can play Wii games.
I guess you can't just jump into full motion. Maybe go from using just your hands to involving your arms too. And maybe one day we'll be ready for games that involve the whole b

Well if you are near-fit you should have no issues with it. I can see some folks scoffing at physical movement to play games, because it is too hard for them...it would be a wake up call saying "hey get the F in shape so you can play these new sweet interactive games".

Okay, Slashdot, let's do what you do best and turn WoW-play with unconventional devices from a mere YouTube fad to a full-on institution of social progress. That's right: WoW-play powered by a treadmill, Mountain Dew cans, and buckets of oily skin run-off.

At least this would get me out of my chair and into motion more. A sign of playing too much is that not only do I know what kind of character he is playing and his approximate level, but also exactly where he is in the Warcraft world.

So is a lot of "prior art" being created so that many of these methods become free to implement, or is it possible that patents on these techniques have already been snapped up and this is just free crowd sourced R&D and fleshing out of the logistics so that only Microsoft and PrimeSense can implement any of this commercially?

This is simply mapping certain motions (detected by the Kinect) into certain keyboard commands, just as the U-Force mapped hand motions to NES buttons. Note that the U-Force was universally rated among the worst controllers and peripherals of all time.

It would be cool if your mage could throw a fireball with a hadoken gesture, but this is currently just "move left arm down to press 1" and "lean forward to press Up".

Seriously, *leaning forward and backward* to control something? Raising your entire arm? Well, I can see how this would help to *reduce* the time kids play games, which is probably good, but completely unrealistic. I can see law suits (in the US of course) related to RSI injuries or just back pain from playing like that.